Numpy Arrays and Python Notebooks

Logistics

  • Submission instructions: you do not need to submit this reading.

Key ideas

  • Using plt.plot.
  • Adjust line color a style using color and linestyle.
  • Setting axis limits using plt.xlim, plt.ylim, and plt.axis.
  • Setting title and axis labels using plt.title, plt.xlabel, and plt.ylabel.
  • Matlab interface vs. object oriented interface.
  • Other plt.plot paramters, e.g. markersize.
  • plt.scatter.
  • Creating histograms with plt.hist.
  • Creating subplots.
  • Color and line style abbreviations in documetation here.

Reading

Read Vizualization With Matplotlib (you can ignore any mentions of Pandas and the IPython shell), Simple Line Plots, Simple Scatter Plots, Histograms and Binnings (but stop before “Two Dimensional Histograms and Binnings), and Multiple Subplots (but stop before “plt.GridSpec: More complicated Arrangements”). You will not need to make a copy of these notebooks, but you will need to be signed into a Google account to run the code cells.

Optional Activities

Activity 1

Download graph.py

  • Modify graphs.py to label the x-axis as x and the y-axis as y.
  • Modify graphs.py to plot the straight lines with magenta dashes.
  • Modify graphs.py to draw the sine wave with 5 point size.
  • Add your own function plot_new_func that plots a different sort of function on the same plot. Comment your function using a docstring.

Activity 2

Download diceSimulator.py.

  • change the simulator to roll 3 dice and display the results.
  • change the simulator to roll 10,000 times.

Acitivty 3

Download montana.py and montana.txt.

  • Modify the program above so that it shows the net population increase (or decrease) from one census date to the next in a second figure. (The first figure should continue to show the original graph.)